My Other Favorite Books

The usual caveat: these recommendations aren't current. Rather, I'm focusing on books that I grew up with—ones that might even be overlooked by today's readers. I also do not mean these are books you should read—I enjoyed very few of the books I was forced to read in various English and literature classes. These are simply books I loved reading (and re-reading). I think you'll enjoy them too.

(Yes, some of these could easily have been categorized as fantasy instead. It's a fuzzy boundary.)

Favorites of General Fiction and Nonfiction

Adams, Cecil

• The Straight Dope

Adams, Richard

• Watership Down

Allen, Woody

• Without Feathers

Austen, Jane

• Pride and Prejudice

Bulgakov, Mikhail

• The Master and Margarita

Calvino, Italo

• The Castle of Crossed Destinies
• If on a winter's night a traveler

Christie, Agatha

• And Then There Were None
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
• The ABC Murders
• Murder on the Orient Express
• Sleeping Murder

Cialdini, Robert B.

• Influence

Crichton, Michael

• The Andromeda Strain
• The Terminal Man

Diamond, Jared

• Guns, Germs, and Steel

Doyle, Arthur Conan

• The Sherlock Holmes canon

Dumas, Alexandre

• The Count of Monte-Cristo

Dunnett, Dorothy

• The Lymond Chronicles
• The House of Niccolò series

Eco, Umberto

• The Name of the Rose

Ferris, Timothy

• Coming of Age in the Milky Way

Forsyth, Frederick

• The Day of the Jackal

Haley, Alex

• Roots
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Hall, Adam

• The Quiller series

Helprin, Mark

• Winter's Tale

Henry, O.

• The short stories

Hofstadter, Douglas R.

• Gödel, Escher, Bach

Hugo, Victor

• Les Misérables

Huxley, Aldous

• Brave New World

Iles, Francis

• Before the Fact

Le Carré, John

• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
• Smiley's People

Meyer, Nicholas

• The Seven-Per-Cent Solution

Niffenegger, Audrey

• The Time-Traveler's Wife

Orwell, George

• Animal Farm
• 1984

Pears, Iain

• An Instance of the Fingerpost

Pirsig, Robert M.

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Poe, Edgar Allen

• "The Gold Bug"
• "The Cask of Amontillado"
• "The Tell-Tale Heart"
• "The Purloined Letter"

Robbins, Tom

• Still Life With Woodpecker
• Jitterbug Perfume

Sacks, David

• Language Visible

Schaeffer, Jack

• Shane

Stephenson, Neal

• Cryptonomicon

Tey, Josephine

• The Daughter of Time

Verne, Jules

• Around the World in 80 Days

Vollman, William T.

• The Ice-Shirt

Vonnegut, Kurt

• Cat's Cradle

Wodehouse, P.G.

• Something Fresh
• Summer Lightning
• Heavy Weather
• Psmith in the City
• Psmith Journalist
• Leave It to Psmith
• The Jeeves stories

…and once again, a shoutout to a short story anthology with some ripping yarns: Masterpieces of Adventure, compiled by Louis Morris. Not to be missed:

• "Leiningen Versus the Ants", by Carl Stephenson
• "The Most Dangerous Game", by Richard Connell